Group Decis NegotDOI 10.1007/s10726-014-9382-x

Special Issue: The Israeli–Palestinian and RelatedConflicts

Amer Obeidi

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

1 Introduction

“Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S.partnerships with governments and peoples in the [region] and weakens thelegitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world.”1

For decades the Israeli–Palestinian conflict has been characterized as intractable, inex-tricable, and the root cause of suffering and misery for many of the people who live inthe Near East region—i.e., the Middle East. It is also a conflict that frequently flaresinto violence of armed confrontations, be that within the confinement of the geograph-ical area between the Jordan River and the east cost of the Mediterranean Sea or inother Arab countries. For nearly forty years there have been attempts by leaders inthe region to bring the peoples closer into believing that co-existence is possible andpeaceful resolution may be viable.2 Notwithstanding these attempts, the Israelis andPalestinians people have been drawn into steady spiral of polarized perceptions of

1 General David Petraeus’s testimony in March 2010 before the US Senate Armed Services Committee.Cited from http://mondoweiss.net/2010/07/petraeus-fed-his-pro-israel-bona-fides-to-a-neocon-writer-including-pathetic-recitation-of-meeting-wiesel.html/ and http://www.haaretz.com/news/u-s-general-israel-palestinian-conflict-foments-anti-u-s-sentiment-1.264910 . Last accessed March 2, 2014.2 In September 1978 Egypt and Israel leaders signed two agreements. The first dealt with the future of theSinai and peace between Israel and Egypt, the second was a framework agreement establishing a format forthe conduct of negotiations for the establishment of an autonomy regime in the West Bank and Gaza. OnSeptember 14 1993 Jordan and Israel signed a peace treaty one day after Israel and the Palestine LiberationOrganization delegation signed a declaration of principles that led to immediate Palestinian self-rule andgovernment. These agreements ended the hostile state of belligerency between Egypt, Jordan and PalestineLiberation Organization on one side and Israel on the other side.

A. Obeidi (B)University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canadae-mail: aaobeidi@uwaterloo.ca

123

A. Obeidi

hostility, enmity, and destructive behavior. Pessimism is prevalent, and attempts totransform the conflict using a staged approach to deescalate the violence and achieve‘islands of agreements’ (Blum 2007) is not gaining support at the grass-root level.Although a Palestinian state may seem to some as a natural, logical end-game to theconflict, issues of sovereignty of this state, the final status of Jerusalem (legal, moraland historical) and the problem of refugees are still posing real challenges.

There is a need for a robust research on the wide issues pertaining to the under-pinnings of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, deficiencies, promises, and perils of thedifferent approaches to resolve it, and a fresh lens to understand the dynamic andemergent properties of this conflict. The principal aim of this special issue is to impar-tially study, model, and analyze some important aspects of this dispute and otherrelated conflicts, and provide insightful conclusions that would help in enhancing ourunderstanding of its underpinnings and possible ways for managing it.

In the first article, Steve Mock, Amer Obeidi, and John Zelezinkow take us intoa journey from antiquity to modernity, outline pivotal historical events that shapedthe underpinning cause of rift between Israelis’ and Palestinians’ views. While it isnot meant to be a detailed exposition of the history of Palestine or the region, as it isunlikely to find such one pass without a challenge by either party, the authors setupa common ground, hopefully acceptable to many. This common ground serves todescribe the events against which models for the Israeli–Palestinian conflict be tested.The authors were successful in providing unprejudiced account of events that shapedthe conflict to date. It is hoped that such account will help other researcher in settingup their models and testing proposals for resolutions.

In the second article, Jim Bryant uses the lens of drama theory to view the inter-action between the Israelis and Palestinians as a succession of a storyline of a soapopera. Bryant focuses on modeling events that took place in 2002 and 2006. Hisfirst confrontation model looks at the positions of Israel and Palestinians in earlyApril 2002 when the Israeli Defense Forces mounted an offensive military operation,dubbed Operation Defensive Shield, against Jenin refugee camp under the administra-tion of the Palestinian Authority. Although his first drama-theoretic model abstractsthe complexity of conflict, it still provides a valuable explanation of the emotionalpressure faced by protagonists. Both Israelis and Palestinians were under tremendouspsychological dilemmas, which may explain their reciprocal hostile intransigence.Bryant also connects the drama-theoretic model to higher- and lower-level dramas;one shows the influence of Hamas on hardening each protagonist’s position, and theother includes the International Community and Arabs. The overall goal of Bryant’sresearch is to demonstrate how drama theory can be used to model and analyze thisconflict at the emotional level. The insights suggest the importance of taking emotioninto account when contemplating strategic scenarios.

In the third article, Scott Findlay and Paul Thagard convincingly argue that emo-tional changes are important to recognize when dealing with complex disputes. Theypropose a cognitive-affective mapping technique to analyze the emotional changesof characters in conflict. Findlay and Thagard illustrates their mapping technique byapplying it to the 1977 Camp David negotiations between Anwar Sadat, the then Pres-ident of Egypt, and Menachem Begin, the then Israel Prime Minister. Their modelsare based on Jimmy Carter’s detailed memoir (Carter 1982) and other reports. Findlay

123

The Israeli–Palestinian and Related Conflicts

and Thagard’s cognitive-maps demonstrate the mental states of both Sadat and Begin.A key observation is how difficult these negotiation and personally deep-rooted, andif it was not for the radical revision of emotional states and the reciprocated positiveemotions by both leaders Israel and Egypt may not ended the conflict and normalizedrelations. Findlay and Thagard’s article complements Bryant’s drama theory analysis.Resolution or attenuation of conflict cannot be achieved without overcoming psy-chological pressures. But overcoming psychological pressures require adversaries tochange their entrenched beliefs, assumptions and attitudes, which are the root-causeof the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

Finally, John Zelezinkow offers a unique view of the Israeli–Palestinian disputeby juxtaposing it with a domestic family dispute. Taking an interest-based approachhe models the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians using the same framework inwhich Australian family mediation is applied. Of course Zelezinkow is aware of thedifference between the two disputes but, in his view, family mediation may providea useful advice in reconciling the disputants’ underlying interests. Hence, the use ofa decision support system AssetDivider allows the parties or mediators to engage intesting potential outcome scenarios about core issues. The key goal is not to suggesta resolution to the conflict, rather put the conflict into a mutually agreeable interest-based perspective that enhanced understanding of why each party entrenched in itsposition.

I like to thank all the authors, Jim Bryant, Scott Findlay, Steve Mock, Paul Thagard,and John Zelezinkow, for their interesting and excellent contribution to this specialissue. I hope other researchers in the field of group decision and negotiation continueapplying their research to real world conflicts and particularly to the Israeli–Palestinianconflict. Equally, I like to thank the vast reviewers for the time they spent in providingcritical, constructive comments. It worth to mention that each manuscript in this specialissue went through at least three rounds of reviewing to ensure the material deliveredin these manuscripts are scientifically sound, politically impartial, and novel. Finally,special gratitude to the Editor-in-Chief of Group Decision and Negotiation JournalProfessor Mel Shakun for his encouragement and support to the production of thisspecial issue.

References

Blum G (2007) Islands of agreement: managing enduring armed rivalries. Harvard University Press,Cambridge

Carter J (1982) Keeping faith: memoir of a president. Bantam Books, Toronto

123